


This One's For You

by voiceoftreason



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Music, Handcuffs, Hippie!Charles, M/M, festival au, punk!Erik
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-09 11:20:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voiceoftreason/pseuds/voiceoftreason
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles is a pretentious hippie and indie band vocalist. Erik is part of a rising punk activist band and is not amused by Charles' tie dye T-shirts and croc wearing tendencies, nor his anorak wearing best friend. Particularly not when a stranger appears and handcuffs the pair together, mid-argument. </p><p>Hilarity and a blossoming relationship ensue.</p><p>A tribute to, and loosely based on 'Tonight You're Mine/You Instead'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was one thing to turn up to a festival in the back of a transit van, arranged among the equipment like blocks in a game of Tetris. At least that showed a lack of funds, or better options. Turning up in a rusting VW campervan in an obnoxious traffic cone orange colour, however, that was just ridiculous. For the same price, you could buy any number of second hand vans or pick-up trucks to haul gear around in. The only way to describe the ‘thing’ that had just pulled up next to Erik’s tour bus was utterly unnecessary and absolutely absurd.

Erik watched, unamused as a band, dressed in objectionably cheerful colours stepped out of the vehicle beside him. One of them was wearing an anorak, in a ghastly yellow colour that was almost as criminal as the colour of their van. He was peering around with a look of childhood wonder and stoned confusion. Behind him, beginning to remove haphazardly stacked equipment was a small man, trying to manoeuvre a stack of cases stacked up to his chin. If the way he was staggering wasn’t funny enough, the ukulele he had tucked under his chin, on the top of the pile, made the sight so humorous that Erik had to struggle not to laugh.

As much as Erik wanted to continue to watch the other band for their sheer entertainment value, he also hadn't eaten since last night and needed to embark on a mission to find food in the mess of tents and vans that stretched out in the distance. And a drink, he needed a drink.

When he got outside, he noted that the man with the ukulele was still just as attached to it before, now sat down on the cases he'd given up on moving, playing random chords. Now that there wasn't a great stack of boxes in front of him, he could see just how appallingly he was dressed. If he thought the anorak was bad, he wasn't nearly prepared enough for the cheerful tie dye T-shirt and canvas shorts with way too many pockets. He looked equally as hipster as the van, which upon closer inspection had a number of vegan supremacist stickers plastered on the paintwork. Pretentious idiots. With an entertained smirk and a barely contained snigger, he walked off in what he hoped was the direction of food.

After a long traipse through the already pooling mud, Erik found the beautiful sight of a burger van and catering tent. The queue was already starting to build up, despite it only being ten in the morning and he resented having to wait behind all the other festival-goers. He sighed. Never mind, at least he got food at the end of it. He wasn't quite sure what it was, but when he got to the front of the queue to order, there was a thought spared for the band next door and a deliberate decision to get as much meat as possible. It wasn't a conscious resolution to try to annoy them, or maybe it was.

By the time he got back to the bus, his band mates were outside beginning to unload their gear. How inconvenient. He'd just gotten food and wanted to eat it while it was still warm, the last thing he wanted was to lug equipment to wherever the hell it needed to be. No, he was going to enjoy his damn burger. That meant hiding on the other side of the bus, the side next to the -now fully unpacked and sat around chilling- hippies next door. Oh well, he'd get over it. Or not.

He'd barely been stood against the van for two minutes when he was approached by tie dye man and anorak freak. Joyous.

"How's catering, anything decent?"

"Yeah, it's alright, I was just enjoying it."

"A burger?" The pair exclaimed in shared disgust.

"Yeah, a burger."

The shorter man took it upon himself to continue further, still holding his ukulele down by his side. "Do you know how that animal was farmed though? It could have been factory farmed, miserable its whole life, and then one day, just shot."

"That's alright with me. Tastes bloody amazing" Erik heard himself and wondered why he was deliberately trying to wind them up. He knew how heated vegans could get about these things.

"But that's disgusting! How can you..."

"Uh-uh. I am out here, eating. I do not wish to discuss the atrocities of the animal farming business; I simply want to enjoy this wonderfully juicy burger. Please spare me the spiel, ukulele boy" Erik knew he was being rude, but that was not something he cared much about currently. He smirked as anorak guy huffed and shuffled in annoyance and the other man opened his mouth to come back with a cutting speech about his manners and culinary morality. Before he could begin to let the sharp words roll off his tongue, Erik lunged slightly and grabbed his ukulele. He really couldn't be bothered to have this conversation, but winding the guy up was pretty amusing and so he took off, darting around the small space, darting around with tie dye man on his tail.

"Give me that back!"

"And what makes you think I would do that?" He said, a teasing smirk evident at the corner of his mouth.

"Because..." Erik smirked as he trailed off; looking around, focusing briefly on the food Erik had put down on a nearby case before reaching for it.  "Because I'll find the nearest bin and dump your food in it." That wiped away Erik's grin pretty sharpish. He'd walked for ages to get that, and he was still pretty damn hungry.

"How dare you! Give that back!"

"Give me my uke back!"

"Boys! Boys! Quit your bickering. You're musicians, not children." A strange man and entourage of event managers emerged from a recently appeared golf cart.

"And who the hell do you think you are?" began Erik, walking toward the interrupting group.

"Someone invested in keeping the peace between fellow music makers. Now come along, I have an idea." He beckoned over to Erik, tie dye man and the rest of the bunch of hippies that had piled out of the van that morning.

"Come on. Now, join hands with the person next to you, and tell them that you love them."

Erik had thought the vegan warriors next door were bad enough, now he was being coerced into a prayer circle by a random member of the event staff. What the hell.

"He just stole my damn uke! I'm not bloody telling him I love him!"

"You stole my food!" was Erik's childish retort.

"You two should be ashamed of yourselves!" The man who appeared on the golf cart moved round to stand behind them, stopping where their hands were reluctantly linked.

"I have a plan." Before either of them had the sense to look down or the awareness to figure out what was happening, there was a series of clicks and a pair of metal handcuffs attaching their wrists together.

They both looked down at the steel bond, opening and closing stuttering mouths. By the time they composed themselves the golf buggy was speeding off along the track. Erik was not amused in the slightest. He took off after it, dragging smaller man behind him, calling out to the fast escaping cart and its mystery occupants. God damn it. This was a situation he did not want to be stuck in.


	2. Chapter 2

Chasing after the golf cart was a losing man’s game. That thing, however small had an engine. Erik did not; he also had an annoying dead weight attached to his left arm that prevented him from accelerating to his full capacity. “Okay. Whoa there friend!” said inconvenient weight chose this moment to stop dead in his tracks, throwing Erik off balance and dragging him backward. “We are not going to catch up with that buggy. That much is evident”

“‘That much is evident’?” Erik turned and stared incredulously at the smaller man. “I could have caught up if it weren’t for you holding me back” He pauses for a second, eyeing him up. “I am also not your friend. I don’t know who you are, your name, or why the fuck we are handcuffed together?”

The other man simply smirked up at Erik in amusement and replied without missing a beat “Charles Xavier, vocalist to ‘Classified’, dedicated vegan and self-professed activist. The last question though: I’m afraid I have no idea.”

Erik exhaled slowly with obvious contained annoyance. “Erik, ‘Metalbenders’, stubborn carnivore. If you don’t know, I’m screwed. It was your fault after all.”

“Are you kidding me? If neither of us knows why, you can't appoint the blame onto me! It could just as likely be your fault.” Charles’ reasoning was pretty tight, he couldn’t argue with that.

Erik frowned, “well I’ve got a busy schedule for the weekend, the sooner we get these off” he gestures to their joined wrists “the better. I could do without being stuck to a croc-wearing hippie when I’m trying to have fun.”

“Don’t mind me. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of you having fun. I have to play in about 4 hours so being rid of you suits me too.” He looks down at his feet. “The crocs are comfortable. Don’t knock them.”

“And I thought they were just a horrendous fashion mistake like that tie-dyed shirt.”

“Says you, Mr I-only-wear-black-to-express-my-inner-hardcore-kid? Wow. My wardrobe stands corrected”

“At least I don’t look like a hipster”

“At least my band is more than just noise!” This petty exchange of insults had reached the point of snatched bitchy comments, expressed with increasing pitch and volume. Erik took a step away from Charles, mouth agape and eyes narrowed.

“What did you just say?”

Charles stumbled on his words for a minute trying to think of a way to backtrack as Erik’s face got progressively stormier. “Er, I mean, your band’s music is a bit rough around the edges, and loud. And well all music is just noise in the end. No offense, right?” He added a nervous grin at the end.  Erik’s face hardened. I was obvious it had been taken with offense. Oh dear, this was going to be a long day. Charles sighed; trust this to happen to him. Not only handcuffed to a complete stranger for god knows how long, but handcuffed to the most pompous and childish man at the festival. Charles continued to try and justify himself while Erik’s face remained somewhere between disgust and hurt. It became evident that Erik was not going to talk any time soon so Charles huffed, yanked harder than necessary on their attached wrist and traipsed off to find someone to help them. First stop: backstage tents. He’d heard a great deal about Erik’s band’s manager and hoped that his ‘demeanour’ might help get him away from Erik and free for his afternoon performance. Erik stumbled for the first few steps, struggling to find his footing in the mud before allowing himself to be dragged back toward some form of civilisation. He had every mind to continue the silent treatment for as long as possible. ‘Just noise’? He’d never been so insulted.

After a short uncomfortable walk back in the direction they’d come from, the pair arrived at the row of gazebo-tents reserved especially for bands and associates. Erik took a lead and wandered through, eagerly seeking Logan, his tour manager. He’d get this sorted- probably deeply insulting a few people along the way and embarrassing himself, but then again- he’d get it sorted. Unfortunately however, it seemed that Logan was nowhere to be found and so he settled for his second choice for problem solving: the bar.

After ordering himself, and reluctantly Erik double measures of scotch, Charles settled onto a bar stool as Erik sighed and leant against the counter to think. This only resulted in him forming the same conclusion as before. Logan would sort it out. As soon as he got his ass over here- who knew when that would be though? He resigned himself to being attached to Charles for the time being. Charles whose hand gestures were currently extravagant enough to take Erik’s left hand with them- what the fuck?

“Heterochromia is in reference to your eyes, which I have to say are stunning. One green, one blue. It's a mutation. It's a very groovy mutation. I've got news for you, Amy. You are a mutant.” Charles, despite the handcuffs holding the pair together, had decided to overlook such and was now trying his best to chat up the girl standing beside him. Erik gave an amused smile. He couldn’t resist breaking his vow of silence to ruin Charles’ attempts to woo this girl; it was too much fun to pass up.

“First you proposition a girl and then you call her deformed. How is that seduction technique working for you?” Erik interrupted winking at the girl, much to Charles’ annoyance.

Charles rolled his eyes. He should have known Erik would try to ruin his chances, just for the shits and giggles. Instead of giving in, he instead decided to persevere. “I don’t know, Erik. How about I report back to you later”, he turned back to the girl, flashing her a show stopping, rock star-esque smile. It was the look he saved for the sole purpose of making girl’s swoon, and by the looks of things, it had worked. She smiled back at him, gooey-eyed and fluttered her lashes; ignoring Erik’s presence on Charles’ other side. Success.

Erik’s nostrils flared. He was not losing this game. He placed his glass carefully on the counter, and wrapped his handcuffed arm, up and over Charles’ head until it rested on his shoulder; lifting Charles’ wrist against his chest and giving the girl a clear view of the metal binding them together for the time being. The girl’s eyes widened and Erik decided cruelly to take it a step further. He rested his head against the top of Charles’, shamelessly nuzzling his hair. “But darling, you’re forgetting about our handcuffs” He whined. Not only could he not lose the game, he was not being an awkwardly attached spectator while Charles got laid. It was just not happening.

As Erik predicted, the girl, who had before had her arm resting on Charles’ withdrew with a look of betrayal and disgust, turned and briskly walked away. Charles began to struggle to get out of Erik’s grip and angrily stutter about the incident when Logan appeared, took one look at the pair, and burst out laughing. This day was not going well for either of them. 

**Author's Note:**

> I watched 'Tonight You're Mine' a few days ago and the plotline seemed too fitting to not inspire an AU fic. Its an amazing feel good film, so if you're at a loose end, go watch it! 
> 
> I finished this chapter today and couldn't resist sharing it with you tonight, I hope to have the next posted tomorrow! I'm super excited about this idea, so updates will almost certain be plentiful and often. 
> 
> I hope you have as much fun reading it as I'm already having writing it. - Molly


End file.
